Donna Reynolds of Kansas City, Mo., joins Iowa activists in a minimum-wage rally held Saturday in Iowa City. / David Scrivner/Iowa City Press-Citizen

Written by

Across the country last week, people demonstrated for an increase in the federal minimum wage, suggesting U.S. workers are tired of being the last ones considered when wealth is being made in America.

While the pay of the average CEO has climbed to over 300 times the average worker’s, those making the legal minimum of $7.25 an hour are barely squeaking by on $15,000 a year.

And they’ve gone without a legally required raise for four years.

“Between 2009 and 2012, rent has gone up 4 percent, food is 8 percent more expensive, child care costs 9 percent more, and public transportation takes a 13 percent bigger bite out of workers’ wallets,” Iowa’s Sen. Tom Harkin said Wednesday in commemorating the July 24 date on which the minimum wage was last raised five years ago.

Harkin, along with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., is a sponsor of the Fair Minimum Wage Act that was introduced in March. Their bill would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015 in three stages. Beginning in 2016, annual increases would also be required to keep pace with the rising cost of living. And the bill would raise the minimum wage for workers who depend on tips to 70 percent of what the overall minimum wage is. Federal law now sets that at $2.13 an hour.

The National Day of Action on July 24 brought marchers out in dozens of cities, organized by labor unions, churches and nonprofits. But a new poll for the National Employment Law Project Action Fund finds those aren’t the only groups supporting a raise in the minimum wage. Eighty percent of Americans — including 62 percent of Republicans — support the proposed increase, and 74 percent consider it a high priority for Congress next year, according to the poll conducted by Hart Research Associates. The legislation has more than 140 House and 30 Senate sponsors.

Tens of millions of Americans earn minimum wage, which economists say would now be $10.74 if it had kept up with inflation. A real wake-up call on how some of the biggest and most profitable corporations take advantage of it came to light recently when a McDonald’s website intended to advise workers on how to budget their earnings was made public — highlighting how shockingly little they are paid.

In a sample monthly budget, the company lists earnings of $1,105 a month from a first job, and $955 from a second job, for a monthly net income of $2,060. That, as the writer who exposed it on the website deathandtaxes.com noted, would require a minimum-wage worker to work 74 hours a week, or nearly two full-time jobs. The monthly expenses McDonald’s lists total $1,260 — assuming $600 in rent or mortgage, a mere $20 in health insurance premiums, and nothing for heat, food or gas for the car, though car payments are included. Those would have to come out of the $800-a-month leftover.

McDonald’s apparently has even less shame than Anthony Weiner. It may tie with Wal-Mart, which encourages its employees to apply for taxpayer-funded health care.

For those who still insist most minimum-wage workers are high school kids earning pocket money, the Economic Policy Institute sets the record straight on that, finding 88 percent nationally are over 20 years old, 36 percent are married and 28 percent have children. In Iowa, 81 percent of minimum-wage workers are over age 20. These are adults with real responsibilities.

The most compelling argument for raising the minimum wage is a humane one, but it’s also in the best interests of the economy, which is 70 percent consumer driven. A family barely scraping by after working two full-time jobs isn’t going to be doing a lot of pleasure shopping. The Economic Policy Institute estimates the proposed minimum wage increase would generate more than $32 billion in new economic activity, leading 140,000 new full-time jobs to be created.

It’s nothing short of obscene that America’s low-wage workers are so disregarded, only to be lectured about the need for better budgeting by those who are exploiting them. The situation also points to the need for vigilant awareness building and advocacy on behalf of those too busy trying to make ends meet to lobby for themselves.

Here, Iowa’s Democratic senator deserves big kudos for his unrelenting and often lone push for a workers’ agenda. Many voters, fed up with long-serving members of Congress who have stopped serving their constituents, are calling for term limits or asking old-timers to step aside and make room for new blood.

But when Harkin leaves at the end of 2014, there will be a dearth of unapologetic pro-labor advocates in Congress calling out the inexcusable gap between American workers and bosses as an economic and a moral issue — both of which it is.